Local businesses like The SEED have a lot to gain from using Instagram well. More than 300 million people are active every day on the network, so it's a great way to engage with your prospects and customers. Here's what The SEED does well:

Consistency Pays Off

The SEED gets points for posting regularly, with 5-10 posts per week, or about 1 per day. You can see a strong correlation between the number of posts each week and the total engagement. When they post more, they get more engagement.

Watchout: You may be tempted to post more and more in order to get engagement, but there's an upper limit. The more you post, the less time each individual post has to get likes and comments before it's pushed down by the next one. 1-2 per day is about right.

Be True To Who You Are

Instagram is a visual network. While captions help engage your followers, it's the picture that draws them in. The SEED does a fantastic job of staying focused on coffees and juices, while providing enough variety to keep followers interested.

A photo posted by The Seed Boca (@theseedboca) on Oct 27, 2016 at 10:54am PDT

Ignore the captions and text for a moment and see how this photo communicates the visual brand of The SEED with a few key elements:

Coffee is front and center

A playful tone helps amuse and entertain the follower

The seasonal nod to Halloween makes it timely and relevant

Use the Best Features of the Medium

An old adage in design is to Embrace the Medium. If you can use photos, don't fill them with text. If you're on video, make sure you use motion to convey your idea.

The SEED knows that Instagram users expect to see interesting, stylized photos with tags that help them explore other related photos. They compose each picture to use the square photo aspect ratio of Instagram well, and strive for well-lit, colorful images. This helps them get an average of 175 engagements per post.

Tip: Experiment with using different filters like Clarendon, which is showing an 11% increase in engagements over photos without a filter applied.

Stay Focused, Be Smart

The SEED is doing amazing work on Instagram, with strong engagement and great branding. It's not random -- they follow the princicples of consistency, brand fidelity, and embracing the medium. It's no surprise that they're doing a great job with Social Marketing on Instagram.

The marketing metrics you should actually care about

Measure What Matters. Data Makes The Difference

Don't get distracted by social shares, clicks, impressions, influencer scores, or other low-level metrics. This 6 Marketing Metrics You Should Actually Care About will show you what really matters for your business.